Does genocide occur anywhere in the world today?

A:

Quick Answer

As of 2014, the most recent known cases of genocide have stemmed from conflicts involving several countries of Africa. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been the focal point of a genocide campaign, as well as the Darfur region of Sudan. Additionally, The United Nations has a special task force to monitor potential genocides around the world, and has issued warnings for parts of the Middle East.

Fighting in central Africa's Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, has claimed an estimated 5.4 million lives since it began in 1996. The main participants in the fighting have been Hutu refugees from Rwanda and various groups seeking to control the country's rich supplies of gold, diamonds and coltan. Though there are claims that the fighting has calmed since 2013, violence has continued, including many incidents of rape. In 2014, it was estimated that a woman is raped every minute in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The fighting in the Congo is related to a genocide that took place one of its neighboring countries, Rwanda, during the 1990s. The country's dominant ethnic group, the Hutu, began slaughtering hundreds of thousands of another group, the Tutsi. Entire families were wiped out systematically, and those trying to flee were killed as well. When the Tutsi eventually overran Hutu forces, the latter retreated to surrounding areas like the Congo, where they caused more unrest and eventually more violence.

Another continuing genocide began in Darfur, a region in western Sudan, in 2003. As of 2014, Sudan's president, Omar al Bashir, has been accused by the International Criminal Court of overseeing the systematic murder, rape and torture of hundreds of thousands of non-Arab Darfuri citizens, yet he remains in power.

There are other areas of the world who have been issued U.N. warnings against potential genocide situations, such as Israel, for its conflict with Palestinians, and Iraq, as several ethnic or religious groups have been involved in violent conflicts.